Day 13 - Free Day in Jerusalem

I'm having internet trouble tonight so I'm not going to post any pictures. I'll try to post some particularly good ones tomorrow to make up for it.

Today was a free day, so it was a pretty light day. We had a test this morning, then we went off to church in Jerusalem (did I mention that we were back n Jerusalem?) The church service was cool, it was in Hebrew and translated into English, and then there were a number of different languages that it was translated into as well.

Worship was really cool, they led worship in Hebrew, and had the words projected up in Hebrew and in English, and some of the songs were songs that we knew so we were able to sing in English while they sang in Hebrew. For some of the other songs it was harder to sing along in English because I didn’t know the songs so I sang along in Hebrew.

Part of the way through the service I realized that I was in Jerusalem, singing with believers from a bunch of different countries, singing in a bunch of different languages and we were praising God in his eternal city. We were praising Jesus for his sacrifice for our sins in the same city that he died on the cross and rose from the dead. It was awesome.

After that we headed into the city for our free day. I took a look at a first century, rolling rock tomb (like Jesus was buried in). Then I had lunch at a pizza place in the Christian Quarter that was really good. Then I headed over to the Garden Tomb, which is a really nice pretty place but isn’t where Jesus was buried. Some people think that it is the place, and it is a lot more appealing to our ideas of what the area around the tomb would look like, but the tomb is too old, it was dug sometime in the 700’s BC, and Jesus was buried in a new tomb. But it was still a nice place, I think I would hang out there if I lived in Jerusalem, it was quiet and calm and cool. (by the way, we have had about seven days in a row of perfect weather, we’ve had sun every day and just perfect temperatures. It has been really nice)

After I left the garden tomb I headed up with a guy and we looked for (and found) the visible remains of the “3rd wall” of Jerusalem that was built sometime in 41-44 AD. It was in a neighborhood in East Jerusalem (which is the Arab part of Jerusalem) and the wall is just out in the sidewalk in front of the gas station. After we looked at the wall, we took some pictures and then talked about some different parts of it for a little bit (comparing a section that looks like solid stone to a section that looked like it was filled with stones and concrete.) When we were walking away I saw an Arab family who had watched us go over and look at the stones sticking out of the sidewalk and try to figure out why we found them so interesting.

After that I went with some people to the souvenir shops in the Arab Quarter of the old city. I didn’t see anything that I liked although I did think about buying some t-shirts so I wouldn’t have to do laundry tonight. (the nice weather has thrown off my wardrobe a bit, I only packed two t-shirts) I decided against getting anything though. But while I was waiting for a few of the girls outside the ship was witness to a shop keeper pulling out all the stops to sell a different girl on the our trip anything from his store. The high point (or low point) came when he held up a dancing girl outfit and said, “you are size sexy, you should buy this.” She did have enough self control to walk away before she punched him.

And that was it for today, it was nice to have a day where we didn’t have to do anything or study anything. I am pretty excited about the prospect of going to bed early tonight also. Tomorrow we are going to a Biblical garden (They have all the different plants that are mentioned in the Bible and also talk about the agrarian lifestyle that was pretty prevalent throughout Bible times. We are also making a short stop at Gath (where Goliath was from) and we are going to a city in the Shephelah where we will spend the afternoon excavating at an archeological dig. Then we are back to Yad HaShmona (where we are staying near Jerusalem) for one more night before we head up north to Galilee. Until Tomorrow, thanks for reading.